Friday, December 18, 2015

Every year at Christmas time, folks have questions about the
“poor widow’s mites” made famous by the story in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4.

And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and
beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich
cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites (λεπτόν), which make a farthing (κοδράντης). And he called unto him his disciples, and
saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in,
than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their
abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had…

The word “mite” first appears in
the books of Mark and Luke in the 1525 first publication of Tyndale’s New Testament, where it was likely
intended as a shortened version of the word “minute” (as in very small) and not
as the name of a denomination. As the late Fr. A. Spijkerman has noted, the
word lepton “implies very small
coins…even we may say...the smallest coin being in circulation in Palestine at
the time concerned.”

It is not surprising that scholars
who did early English translations of the Bible had a tendency to “reinterpret
the ancient coin denominations of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scriptural
sources in terms of contemporary sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English
money,” according to Oliver Hoover, who discussed this in detail in the ANS Magazine, 2006, 2, and points out
that neither the original Greek text of the New Testament nor the Latin Vulgate
Bible, mention the “mite.” Instead the Greek or Latin words used in that
version are either lepta or minuta respectively.

The word
“mite” was most widely disbursed by the King James Version, printed in 1611,
after work by 47 scholars that lasted nearly seven years. “Not only would this
translation become one of the most popular English versions of the Bible ever
published, but the artistry of its language ensured that it would also become
one of the greatest single influences on the development of English literature
well into the twentieth century,” Hoover said.

The
translators wished their work to “speak like itself, as in the language of
Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.” For this reason,
the King James Bible and some earlier English translations are of “some
interest to numismatists, given their tendency to reinterpret the ancient coin
denominations of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scriptural sources in terms of
contemporary sixteenth and seventeenth-century English money. Thus, in a small
way, the King James Version serves as a document for the circulating coinage of
early modern Great Britain,” Hoover wrote.

However,
there was no mite coin known to exist
in British coinage of this period. “In fact, the mite (meaning “small cut piece” in Old Dutch) was only created as a
circulating coin of Flanders in the fourteenth
century. Initially, the mite was a
small billon [very low quality silver] coin...but by the sixteenth century it had become copper,” he explained.

One might
guess, therefore, that this denomination was imported and used in Britain at
the time, but “there is little evidence to support this possibility,” Hoover wrote.
Even though the Dutch mite did not circulate in Britain, and no British mites existed, the mite was mentioned in sixteenth-century arithmetic books as a
fraction of a farthing, varying from
one-third to one-sixteenth.

It seems
quite “likely that the mite has entered into the King James Version…as a result
of a translational quandary created by the original…”

In these
early versions, Mark gives the value of two lepta
as a kodrantes or quadrans. But Hoover pinpoints the
crunch: while “any Latin grammarian would have known that a quadrans was a bronze coin worth
one-fourth of a Roman as, making its
English translation as farthing
(one-fourth of a penny) almost
unavoidable. Unfortunately, in the English coinage system there were no
denominations smaller than a farthing,
creating the problem of how to deal with Mark’s lepta/minuta.”

Thus there
was no British parallel for any coin smaller than a farthing, and there is a good chance that the arithmetic term mite was thus brought into play. Hoover
also speculates, however, that possibly William Tyndale’s pre-King James
translation might “have been a little influenced by the contemporary Flemish
monetary system when he chose his words. After all, Tyndale is known to have
had good Flemish connections, and he composed and printed his translation of
the New Testament while in the nearby German cities of Hamburg, Cologne, and Worms. In 1534, Antwerp became his home and a base for
shipping his contraband translations into Tudor England, until he was finally
arrested and executed for heresy in 1536. Thus, Tyndale is likely to have been
conversant with the Flemish currency system, in which there were twenty-four mites to the penning.”

Later, during the seventeenth century British money had not been
decimalized and was organized according the pound/shilling/pence system. There were 240 pence
(pennies) to the pound. There were smaller denominations than the penny, such as the farthing, which was one-quarter of a penny. There was an even smaller coin, worth a half-farthing, and it was called a mite. Hence, the smallest coin in
circulation in early first century Jerusalem, became known worldwide and
probably for all time as the mite.

It is logical that people who are
interested in the stories of the Bible would want to know more about these
coins and exactly which ones could be associated with the stories.

Frederick Madden, in 1864, wrote
that “The mite…was the smallest coin
current in Palestine in the time of our Lord.”

In 1914, Rogers wrote that “it is
natural to conclude that the coins being cast into the treasury were strictly
Jewish coins….the choice of strictly Jewish copper is accordingly limited to
the coins of the Hasmonean or the Herodian families….and with some degree of
certainty it may be said that the popular coins for this purpose were the small
copper of Alexander Jannaeus and his successors…”

Whatever its origin, the poor
widow’s mite has become one of the
most frequently referenced and most popular ancient biblical coins.

Here are two things we know about the widow’s mite story, as related by both Mark and Luke:

-- It is certainly a story about
charity and goodwill, rather than a story about money. The poor woman gave all
she had to the treasury of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, while, relatively
speaking, many rich people gave little of themselves.

-- The amount of money the widow
threw into the Temple treasury was two coins of the smallest size in existence
in Jerusalem at that time. There is no doubt that the small prutah (Guide to Biblical Coins (GBC)
Nos. 1152, 1153) or half-prutah (GBC Nos. 1134, 1138, 1147, 1185-87),
coins of the Maccabean kings and Herod the Great, fit that description. The
most common among them, easily by a factor of more than 1000 to 1, is the small
prutah that was most likely struck by
the Hasmonean successors of King Alexander Jannaeus (103 – 76 BC), which have
been documented to range in weight from 0.20 to 1.70 grams, with an average of
0.81 grams.

The massive issue of these tiny
bronze coins in this poor land filled a market need. Some versions of these
coins may have been first struck very late in Jannaeus’ reign and likely
continued to be minted periodically until as last as 50-45 BC. These coins were
all decorated on one side with an anchor and on the other side a crude star.

Herod I (40 – 37 BC) also minted
very similar looking coins but much more scarce coins, possibly quite early in
his reign, which technically began on the ground in Judea around 37 BC, these
coins range in weight from 0.49 grams to 1.78 grams with an average of 0.94
grams. Herod’s coins are decorated on one side with an anchor and on the other
side a crude inscription.

The similarities of the Herodian to
the Hasmonean in both design and method and general appearance coins suggest
that the latter were crudely copied from the earlier ones, and archaeological
finds suggest that their circulation overlapped.

Both the Hasmoneans and Herod I also issued relatively small numbers of a
few coin types which were clearly meant to be half denomination prutot.

The best current evidence suggests
that during the first century, the Judean shekel
was made up of 256 prutot. Consider
that there are 100 cents to the dollar; hence this was very small change
indeed. In those days one pomegranate cost only a prutah and in those days many pomegranates grew wild and could be
plucked off trees in many areas (as they can today in Israel) for free.

Archaeological evidence proves that
even though these small coins were struck in the first century BC, they continued
to circulate well into the first century AD when Jesus lived, and even for as
long as the fourth century AD. This has been shown by archaeological
excavations in Israel. At the Joint Sepphoris excavation in 1985, we found the
small prutot of Jannaeus in the same
areas as fourth-century Roman bronze coins. These were useful pieces of small
change, at a time and place that small change was not easy to find (many late
Roman and Byzantine small bronze coins were chopped in halves and quarters to
accommodate the market need).

Another aspect of the story of the
poor widow’s mite remains relevant today: Many people of great means contribute
little to charitable causes, while less wealthy individuals contribute a great
deal relative to their ability. This is a topic fit for everyone to ponder.

Friday, October 23, 2015

With Shraga Qedar in 1982, photo: Don Simon

Watching
the world change as time passes is an interesting process, and I am especially sensitive
about it whenever I write an obituary about one of my longtime friends and
colleagues. All kinds of stories from the old days are brought to the top of
the memory heap. Most recently I wrote a tribute and obituary about Shraga
Qedar, my friend of 40 years for CoinsWeekly(http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/News/4?&id=3695&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CoinsWeekly+15.10.2015).
I have previously written obituaries for two other friends and mentors, Prof.
Ya’akov Meshorer and Prof. Dan Barag, legendary teachers, authors, archaeologists,
and numismatists.

Back
in 1993 I wrote about two other friends from Jerusalem who died within a few
months of each other. They were especially interesting because of the key roles
they played in the Dead Sea Scrolls drama; they brought the scrolls to light in
the first place.

In
1946, a 13-year-old boy of the Ta’amira Bedouin tribe was hiking with older
friends in the cliffs on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Some say they were
shepherds minding goats. Others observe that the Ta’amira Bedouins have dealt
in antiquities for 150 years and they simply may have been combing those
historically rich hills for artifacts to sell.

While
throwing stones into a cave, the boys heard pottery break. They investigated
and found several tall pottery jars containing leather and parchment scrolls.
They took the scroll pieces to Jerusalem
antiquities dealers, who chased the boys out of their shops. One exclaimed:
“Those are old pieces of leather, not antiques. Sell them to a shoemaker.”

The
boys took his advice. A shoemaker in Bethlehem named Kando also displayed oil
lamps and small antiquities in his window. Kando recognized potential in the
scroll fragments and bought them, although at that time the oldest known
written manuscripts dated back only a few hundred years.

Eventually,
Kando sold some of the scrolls to Samuel, the Syrian Metropolitan at the
Monastery of St. Mark in Old Jerusalem. Samuel later advertised his scrolls in
the Wall Street Journal.

Kando
sold other scrolls to Professor E. L. Sukenik, chief archaeologist of HebrewUniversity.
(Sukenik’s son, Yigael Yadin, later also acquired the scrolls the Syrian
Metropolitan had advertised in the Journal, for the State of Israel.)

When
the 13-year old Bedouin boy who helped find the Dead Sea Scrolls grew up, he
adopted a new name, in the Arab custom, after his first son was born. Abu Ali al
Taweel was well known by Israeli antiquities enthusiasts. General Moshe Dayan
wrote that he often bought antiquities from Abu Ali, who also once saved the
famous general’s life.

Here’s
how Gen. Dayan told the story in his book Living
with the Bible:

With Abu Ali al Taweel and Don Simon about 1984

“I do not think anyone has ever
succeeded in duping Abu Ali by trying to sell him a fake antique or a
counterfeit coin. Whenever I bought anything from him, I could always be sure
that it was authentic.

“One day I received a message
from him telling me that he had a beautiful earthenware censer that he was sure
would interest me. We arranged to meet in Jerusalem
and there I saw it.... I bought it and asked where it had been discovered. Abu
Ali said it was found in a cave south of Bethlehem.
I asked him to take me there. I wished to see what kind of cave it was, whether
a burial cave, a dwelling, or one used for pagan rites.

“He promised to do so and we
fixed a date. But shortly before we were due to meet, he informed me that he was
very busy and asked for a postponement. He postponed the next meeting too on
some pretext or other. I refrained from interrogating too closely one so much
smarter than I, and I just went on waiting. The hoped-for day finally arrived
and we set out for the cave.

“We passed Bethlehem, and about
half way along the road to Hebron we turned off westward along a dirt track in
the direction of the foothills.... [I saw what] had once been a burial cave.
The remains of skeletons were still there. But in the course of time it had
been used as a sheepfold and as shelter for shepherds in heavy rains....

“Now that my curiosity about the
cave had been satisfied, I asked Abu Ali why he had kept postponing our visit.
‘Oh, Wazir,’ he replied, ‘this cave was being used at the time by a band of PLO
saboteurs. It was they who began digging in their spare time and they who
unearthed the ancient vessels and put them on the market. How, then, could I
bring you here, you who are minister of defense? I had to wait until they moved
elsewhere. Imagine what would have happened if I had brought you while they
were still here. Either they would have opened fire on you, in which case your
soldiers would have shot me; or you would have shot them, in which case their
comrades would have suspected me of betraying them and delivering them into
your hands, and then they would have murdered me and my children.’”

Abu
Ali died in Bethlehem in 1993 at age 60. He had been ill with cancer for some
time. I had often met with Abu Ali over the previous 20 years. For a while he
owned a little nut and sweet shop near Manger Square in Bethlehem. Over six-feet tall, with a strong,
handsome face always framed by a white kafeyah,
the traditional Bedouin headdress, Abu Ali cut a colorful figure. When I visited
Abu Ali, he sometimes showed me coins or antiquities. Over the years, via
friends as interpreters, he told me many stories, including the one of how he and
his friends found and sold the Dead Sea Scrolls to Kando.

(Nevertheless,
after an early version of this story was published, another friend, Jerusalem
lawyer Arnold Spaer, now deceased, wrote me a letter and said that Abu Ali was
NOT one of the boys who discovered the scrolls. However….Abu Ali told me this
story at least TWICE translated by Israeli friends fluent in Arabic…and
furthermore his son Samir Kando referred to this more than once. I am not sure
why Spaer—who was Abu Ali’s lawyer—took this position, but I wanted readers to
have all the info.)

Khalil Iskander Kando at his shop in Jerusalem's St. George Hotel

It
was only about three weeks before Abu Ali died that Khalil Iskander Kando, age
83, also of Bethlehem,
died. Kando had been an officially licensed antiquities dealer for decades and
operated a small shop in East Jerusalem, in a room above his gift shop,
adjoining the St. GeorgeHotel in East Jerusalem.

Kando,
called Abu Anton, wore a burgundy fez and traditional white robes each time I
saw him. A tall man with larger-than-life features, he took delight in showing
me interesting coins and ancient artifacts. Kando never wanted to talk about
the scrolls. Yet in a nook off the stairway to his tiny, second-floor antiquity
shop stood one of the very jars in which they were found. No matter how often I
asked, he would never pose next to it for a photograph.

Once
in the 1970s, I sat across from Abu Anton, looking at ancient coins. He was
cleaning one in a jar of dilute sulfuric acid he kept on his desk for that
purpose. As we talked, he took a dental bridge out of his mouth and dipped it
into the acid. Next he brushed it with the toothbrush he had been using to
clean coins. Kando shook off the dental work and returned it to his mouth,
resumed talking and never even puckered.

Abu
Ali, the finder of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Abu Anton, their first buyer, were
both publicity-shy. Both were tarnished during the 1950s when, reportedly, some
scrolls were deliberately cut up and sold in pieces to extract higher prices
from the market. And stories linger that some pieces of scrolls may still
remain in private hands in Bethlehem today.

Yet
the two men had honorable reputations. Ya’akov Meshorer, chief curator of
archaeology at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem,
told me that “From 1967, when we had dealings with him, Kando was always
generous with the Museum.”

When I telephoned my friend Samir Kando in Bethlehem to express
condolences on his father’s death, he said, “Aye, David, we are only guests in
this life. But what we touch may live forever.”

Friday, October 16, 2015

The earliest coins with Hebrew inscriptions were struck
during the Persian period. It seems likely that the earliest of those coins
were struck at the early Philistian mint of Gaza. Later, only small
denominations were struck in Judah, quite likely in or very near to Jerusalem.
These are known as “Yehud” coins because most of them are inscribed with the paleo-Hebrew
legend YHD, although some carry the
name Hezekiah and one very rare
variety has the name of a priest named Yochanan.

It was
quite a technical feat for coins to be minted at all in this area, which was
rather out of the way at the time, and did not have great technological
capabilities. The mints in ancient Judah probably quite resembled small
blacksmith or jewelry shops, which have must have been in the precinct of a
fort or a palace because of security matters in the transport of uncoined
silver and then actual coins. These first coins struck in Judah were patterned
after Athenian coins and were struck some time before 333 BCE.

The denominations
of the coins are uncertain. However this group seems to be related to the known
weight of the Judean shekel of 11.4 grams beginning in the Iron Age about 800
BCE. The two denominations of the earliest small silver coins struck in Judah
weigh around either half a gram or a quarter of a gram. These weights
correspond with approximately 1/24 of the known weight of the shekel.
Archaeologists believe that there were 24 gerahs in each shekel at the time,
although in Exodus 30:13 we read “the shekel is twenty gerahs.” This discrepancy may be due to a slightly
different division of the shekel in an earlier period.

Half a
gram is very light and small for a coin. Manufacture of such tiny objects caused
some challenges, because the dies that were created to strike these coins were
very fragile due to their small size. Because of this, the dies were subject to
either heavy wear, or absolute breakage. Numismatists today can track that
process rather precisely if they can identify a sufficient number of specimens.

The most
common of the early Yehud coins is a type with an obverse portrait of Athena
and the reverse portrait of an owl, just like the classic Athenian tetradrachm.
But instead of the AΘE ethnic inscription for Athens, the coin carries the
paleo-Hebrew script YHD. It is estimated that this type represents a full 15%
of the Yehud coins in existence.

Canadian
numismatist JP Fontanille, also a professional musician, has gathered some 225
photos of this coin type in various die stages, and has created a fabulous
brief video accompanied by music he composed and plays.